


Minty Fresh

by Bobcatmoran



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: 19th Century Medicine, Canon Era, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 14:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17003499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bobcatmoran/pseuds/Bobcatmoran
Summary: On a hot summer's day, Joly tries to find a new way to cool off.





	Minty Fresh

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Akallabeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akallabeth/gifts).



“Hello?” Musichetta looked around Joly’s lodgings from the doorway. His concierge had said that both Joly and “his bald friend” were in, and she could swear that someone had told to her come in when she knocked. 

“Hello!” said a voice from the floor. She looked down, and there were Joly and Bossuet, sprawled on the floor, wearing only their shirts. Both of them had some sort of green paste smeared on their faces. Joly raised a hand in greeting and she noticed that he also had the paste on the inside of his wrists.

“Dare I ask what you two are doing?” she asked, bemused.

“Well,” Bossuet said, “it is dreadfully hot today.”

“Dreadfully,” Joly echoed. “The mercury shows that it is thirty-five degrees. That is nearly as hot as the human body, which you would think would mean that it would be perfectly comfortable, but it is not.”

“Aren’t you from the Midi?” Musichetta pointed out. “I should think you’d find this weather a taste of home.”

“It’s not the same at all. You get sea breezes at home. Here there is no sea, no breeze, and I suspect the temperature has raised the rates of decay and putrefaction in the streets, which is leading to a rise in miasmatic vapors.”

“I convinced him to open the windows anyhow,” Bossuet said. “It was getting truly unbearable in here, a veritable hothouse, and I’d rather chance death by an errant miasma than slow roasting like a side of beef.”

“At any rate,” Joly said, “we have relocated to the floor. Heat rises, so it is cooler down here.”

“Marginally,” Bossuet added. “You should join us,” he said with a grin.

“Is the dress code, or lack thereof, a part of joining this club?” Musichetta asked.

“Maybe?” Bossuet said hopefully.

“It would be more healthful to be wearing fewer articles of clothing,” Joly said. “Layers trap heat.”

“Oh?” Musichetta asked, unfastening her dress. “Is that your educated scientific opinion?”

“Very scientific,” Joly said, with a serious tone belied by his smile.

“Most educated,” Bossuet added.

“Well,” Musichetta said, stepping out of her dress and undoing her petticoats. “I shall bow to your superior education in this instance. Just this one instance, mind you! L’aigle, would you be a dear and help me with my corset?”

“Why him and not me?” Joly complained from his prone position on the floor.

“Because he’s better at it than you are. I don’t know what that knot was you tied my laces in last time, but I am not one of your cadavers to be sutured up. Besides, you have that green whatever-it-is on your wrists and I don’t want it on my linen. What is that, anyhow?”

“Mint.”

“Mint?” Musichetta darted a look at the alarmingly healthy mint plant that Joly kept on his windowsill. It did seem to be missing a chunk. “Dare I ask why?”

“Well, it is quite hot today,” Joly said. “And mint, I don’t know why, but it has a cooling taste to it, as though it is actually lowering the temperature in your mouth.”

“And so you decided to try it on your skin to see if it cooled that down?” Musichetta asked.

Joly grinned, delighted. “Yes! Exactly! Clearly those inflexible minds who say women have no capacity for scientific thinking don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“Clearly,” Musichetta said dryly. “So that’s just mashed up mint leaves then?”

“With a little bit of water to make them more of a paste,” Joly said. “I think there’s still some in my mortar if you would like to try. I recommend the face, since the blood is close to the surface there — that’s why you blush on your face and not on, say, your elbows. Or you could try your pulse points, as I have.” He frowned. “I’m not sure which is more effective.”

“I think I will pass on putting mint paste anywhere on my body. Thank you, darling,” Musichetta added, pecking Bossuet on the crown of his head and shrugging off her corset and flapping her chemise. “Ah, you’re right, that is much cooler.”

Bossuet poked at her sleeve plumpers, which were sitting on the table. “If skinny arms ever come into fashion, all you would need to do is wear these for awhile, and when you take them off, people will be shocked and awed to see how delicate your arms look in comparison.”

“Are you saying I have skinny arms?” Musichetta asked.

“You have perfect arms,” Bossuet said. “Pale and perfect and just the right amount of ticklish.”

Musichetta dodged him, laughing. “You are incorrigable.”

“Indeed,” Bossuet said. He sunk into a chair. A bit of the mint paste on his face slid off into his lap. “It really is too hot for any of this, though, and I think that my green mask is starting to fade.” He grabbed a towel from next to the basin and scrubbed the paste off his face. “Ah, that’s better,” he said, then turned to Musichetta and Joly. “Did I get it all?”

Musichetta gasped and Joly made an odd squeaking noise.

“What? Do I still have some on my nose?” Bossuet scrubbed at it again.

Joly got up and started rummaging around in the pockets of his coat. 

“Oh my goodness,” Musichetta said, looking a bit as though she was trying not to laugh.

“What?” Bossuet asked again.

Joly handed him the small mirror he usually used to check his tongue, then went over to the basin to scrub off his own face and wrists.

Bossuet looked in it. “Oh,” he said. “Well, this is not a side effect I had expected.” There was a distinct green tint to his face.

“I’m not green, too, am I?” Joly asked, turning to face them.

“Oh, come now, that is not fair at all,” Bossuet said. “You are cheating by having a dark complexion.” He handed over the mirror so Joly could see that, indeed, his dark skin didn’t show a trace of the mint’s color.

“I am so sorry,” Joly said. “I had no idea this would happen.”

“Well, look on the bright side,” Bossuet said. “Looking as though you are on death’s door is all the rage nowadays, and this gives me a fashionable hint of the cadaverous.”

“Indeed!” Musichetta said. “Your Romantic friends will be terribly jealous.” 

“Here,” Joly said, handing her a cup.

“What’s this?”

“Water that I have infused with mint. I promise it almost certainly won’t turn you green.”

Musichetta raised her eyebrows skeptically.

“No, he’s right, it is quite refreshing,” Bossuet said. 

“I’m not sure whether I should trust you on that, given your current complexion.”

“The only bits of Bossuet that have turned green are those that had the paste on them,” Joly pointed out. “And I really am terribly sorry about that.”

“My dear Jolllly, stop apologizing,” Bossuet said. “It will fade, I am sure, within a couple days. And I wouldn’t mind a cup of that mint water myself.”

“Of course,” Joly said, bringing over the pitcher and a couple more cups. “Hydration is very important to flush out the toxins that you may have been exposed to via the heavy miasma in the air today.”

“To the refreshing and verdant power of mint?” Bossuet asked, raising his cup in a toast.

“To the power of mint!” Joly and Musichetta agreed, clacking their cups together in a toast.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my youngest brother for beta-reading and commentary on unfortunate side effects of macerated herbs smeared on your skin.


End file.
